1 78 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [DECEMBER 



these also, sitting with my boots among them and drawing the 

 latter also to show the scale ! 



We were confined to the tent by snow all the next day. De- 

 benham and I made a chess-board on the back of his plane-table 

 and cut out card discs for the pieces. After several weeks we 

 began to realise the appearance of the men, and later we played 

 many games while we were waiting on Cape Roberts. 



On the last day of 1911 we left this camp and moved west 

 to Gondola Mountain. The glacier was deeply snow-covered, 

 and though we sank in it the sledge pulled pretty well. There 

 must have been plenty of crevasses where the ice stream curved 

 round the end of the nunakol, but though we sank in a foot or 

 two at times, yet the snow was so deep we didn't break through 

 anywhere. The sun came out to cheer us, and later in the day 

 we reached a scattered moraine of granite blocks. The ice had 

 been melted here in the previous summer, and we heard the old 

 familiar creaking and splintering of ' glass-house ' and ' bottle- 

 glass ' which reminded Debenham and myself of our trip up the 

 Koettlitz Glacier. 



Finally we came to a sudden ice cliff about 100 feet high, 

 but just not too steep for tobogganning. So we ' let her go ' and 

 slid down into the stream-cut gully which fringed the Gondola 

 Ridge. 



This was the most interesting locality I saw in Antarctica. 

 On nearer approach the likeness to a gondola disappeared, as 

 the great granite buttress supporting the dolerite capping came 

 into view. I must apologise for comparing this fine mountain to 

 a decayed molar tooth, with three black cusps and a rounded hol- 

 low between, but there was a great similarity in shape. To the 

 north of the nunatak was a low ridge about two miles long, com- 

 posed of granite and separated from the mount by a col or pass 

 which rose but little above the glacier level. All along the east- 

 ern slopes were piles of moraine material. Great cones of debris, 

 built up of granite, dolerite and a yellow rock (which we were 

 glad to recognise as Beacon Sandstone), stood out like watch- 

 towers on the morainic rampart. 



Towards one of these, like a railway embankment of yellow 

 sand, we directed our way. We carried our gear to the top, 

 smoothed off the site somewhat, and then pitched our camp on 

 mesozoic sandstones probably the first time this has been done 



